AOS 12/5/04 Review Part 4

[lschrage]

I'm back!!

 

Well, I last left off in bed (which is actually where I am right now...Gotta love laptops and wireless internet...) on our first night on the cruise.

 

For those just joining, the cast of players of this AOS cruise are:

 

Myself - 35

Hubby - 36

BIL (Hubby's brother) - 35

SIL (Hubby's sister) - 34

Nephew (hubby's sister's son) - 6

Neice (hubby's sister's daughter) - 3

MIL - low 60's

 

Monday, 12/6, At Sea

 

Today was our first day at sea. In my opinion At Sea days are THE best way to start off a cruise. Things are nice and relaxed, and you get to take advantage off all the ship's amenities (like the beds located in each cabin!).

 

Well, since there was nothing planned, per se, we decided to sleep in. So I was able to sleep in until 6:30 am. What?? 6:30 am!!! What in the heck? Hello Mr. Internal Alarm Clock...it's nice of you to work while I'm on vacation, but I assure you, there is no need for you to work overtime to get me out of bed. So I "snoozed" Mr. Internal Alarm Clock, which worked out fine until Mr. Internal Alarm Clock started talking with Ms. It's Time To Pee Now. Well, Ms. It's Time To Pee Now finally got me out of bed at 6:40 am, and I decided to just stay up.

 

I tossed on my workout clothes and headed up to deck 12 to get some walking/jogging in while watching the sun rise. I ended up walking/jogging about 3 miles, and felt fabulous for the short little cardio workout. I was done aroud 7:30 am, which was fine because the higher the sun crawled in the sky, the hotter and more uncomfortable it became out on deck 12. I took the camera along with me and managed to take some great sunrise shots.

 

After my short little cardio workout, I headed for the windjammer to get about 4 little glasses of orange juice. I picked up some oj and a donut for my hubby and took them back to the cabins so that he could enjoy them while in bed (I'm such a thoughtful wife...).

 

Back in the cabin, I scanned the Compass to see what was going on for the day, and noticed that they had a "Morning Walk a Mile" thing on Deck 12 where you could earn a Ship Shape Dollar. So I headed back up to deck 12, with my workout clothes still on, so I cold claim my ship shape dollar.

 

After that, I woke hubby up and headed to the Windjammer/Island Grill for breakfast. Breakfast for me was the same throughout the week; an egg beater omelette with ham, mushroom, onion and cheese with a belgian waffle square with strawberry topping and whipped cream. Also included were a couple links of turkey sausage, as well as a couple of "burger king" style of hash browns. Since it was still fairly early, tables were pretty easy to find in the Windjammer.

 

After breakfast, we headed to the pools to grab our spot. We didn't get to the pools until about 10:00 am, but there were definitely plenty of chairs available.

 

We stayed at the pool until about 1:30, and decided to call it a day on deck as we were both starting to feel really warm.

 

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Unfortunately, I'm fallling asleep while I write this, so I'll have to finish the rest of this tommow. G'night!

 

Lynne

[VanessaC322]

Keep the review coming! I can hardly wait to sail the Adventure on Jan 30th!

[lschrage]

Ok, so we were at the pool until around 1:30. We came back to our cabin, showered, and then met the rest of the family for lunch at the Windjammer.

 

Well, lunch at the windjammer was not nearly as yummy as it was the day before. In fact, the food at lunch in the windjammer went steadily downhill all week long. By the end of the cruise, we were having lunch at the promenade cafe since the sandwiches and pizza there were almost always better than in the Windjammer.

 

After lunch, we did more exploring and then ended up in the casino. I ended up playing roulette for a while (and lost $3). Hubby played blackjack and ended up down about $60.

 

Our official Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle was set for 5:00 in the Blue Moon Lounge (or whatever it's called). Let me tell you, it was a very disappointing gathering due to the lack of involvement from RCCL. There was one RCCL person that handed out lanyards and Cruise Critic Pins, but there was no one from the cruiseline to act as "ambassador". There was no real effort made by Royal Caribbean to be involved. Sure they had some basic appetizers, and windjammer type drinks (ice water, lemonade, iced tea). But that's it. There was no representative from the cruise line to answer questions, no drawing for the aquamouse or anything. I still enjoyed meeting everyone (again), but was not impressed by RCCL. Note to RCCL: if you do something half-a$$ed and with very little effort (and resources), maybe you shouldn't even bother to do it at all....

 

After the disappointing Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle, we zipped back down to our cabin to get ready for our first formal night since we had 15 minutes to get ready.

 

Ok. I gotta run off. I'll be back with the rest in a bit.

 

Lynne

[lschrage]

Ok where was I?....

 

Oh yes. Formal Night.

 

Well, we managed to get ready in 15 minutes, and had the rest of the family meet us in our cabin. We all headed down and had our group photo taken on the staircase near the Photo Shop on Deck 3. Picture turned out really well, especially since I had the photographer remove the tacky plastic flowers that we placed on either side of the stairway.

 

We were arrived about 20 minutes late for dinner, but our server Ajay was happy to have us there. For dinner, I started with the escargot, and then the onion tart (which was more like quiche), and then the ribeye for dinner. The escargot was wonderful as always, and as a perk, I thoroughly grossed out the rest of the family! The steak was good as well. (I think...it's been over a week now so I don't really remember). I don't recall what was for dessert. For some reason, I want to say it was some sort of grand marnier souffle, which was really really good.

 

After dinner, we went back to the cabins and changed back into our swimsuits and headed up to the hot tub. Since Second seating hadn't started, and most folks from first seating were doing the shows, we had the entire pool deck to ourselves. It was heaven. I think this is one of my favorite moments of the cruise. We had all seven of us hanging out in the hot tub for about an hour, including my neice and nephew. Since they had their little innertube floaties on, we played a game of "keepaway" of sorts with them; we kept bouncing/pushing them away from us so that they would float to another family member. The kids were having a blast, and so were we since there was plenty of room in the hot tub. It was quiet, peaceful, and very relaxing. Definitely wonderful, and I will now always head to the pool deck after formal night dinner.

 

After about an hour or so, we had another couple join us, so we packed up and headed back to our cabin. We needed to get our dive gear packed up so that we could get off the ship early for our dive in Aruba the next day.

 

I think we were in bed by midnight after a wonderful day at sea.

 

Stay tuned for the next installment - "A Day in Aruba"

 

Lynne